Category Archives: dog friendly

But Kate Middleton and Prince William could not have expected to be impersonated by dogs – until we hosted our Canine Royal Wedding.

The stars of the show, red setter ‘Kate Puggleton’ and ‘Prince Woofiam’, a Portuguese Estrala, dressed as the soon-to-be-married royals as they tied the knot in a mock ceremony.

As well as giving a humorous nod to the real Royal Wedding, we hope the stunt will help highlight the cruelty of puppy farming as well as raising over £200 for Be PuppyFarm Aware.

Maggie Morgan, co-owner of Metrodeco, which holds regular doggy tea parties and has a special dog menu, said: “You might think we’re barking mad but we wanted a novel way tocelebrate the Royal Wedding at the same time as highlighting a real animal crueltyissue.”

Celebrity vet Marc Abraham, who donated a signed copy of his new autobiography Vet on Call to be raffled at the event, said: “This was a fantastic way to bring a horrific practice into the public eye. Puppies bred by puppy farms are usually kept in horrible, dark conditions, totally unsocialised and riddled with both infectious and inbred often incurable diseases.”

Okay, it’s hardly Amy Winehouse…but there can’t be many small tea shops on the South Coast of England who have released a music video. Besides, we think Brighton-based singer/songwriter and comedienne Hannah Brackenbury, who penned the track recently after a visit, is as good as any of the current crop of British singers. Honest 🙂

This is the first rough cut of The Metrodeco Song – and it was filmed on a sunny afternoon in Kemp Town, Brighton, and Hove. We are currently in promising talks with a charity that’s close to our hearts and some music industry big wigs about making a proper recording in a studio and re-shooting the video so we can flog it on iTunes. All proceeds to that good cause, obviously.

So if you like it, please, please, pleeeease click on the ‘share’ options above or below and tell your Twitter, Facebook and MySpace followers and friends. Or just spread the link to this blog around.

Will was probably thinking about the great-tasting coffee – but a man with his digital know-how could not have failed to notice the inventive things these delectable and modern emporia are doing with social media.

Will mentioned Coffee@33 in Trafalgar Street, a delightful and quirky stop-off for anyone heading from the train station to North Laine – or coming back. Coffee@33 has a useful entry on Foursquare to which at least a dozen people have recently ‘checked in’, many urging visitors to try their apparently wonderful ‘flat white’. So I checked in and tried it. Take my word for it – it’s velvety smooth and definitely worth trying. But I’d probably never have known without eavesdropping on the online conversations that enticed me to that shop.

Another of Will’s favourites was our near neighbours at the Red Roaster, who have a vibrant Facebook appreciation group with 183 members, a veritable community of coffee-lovers online. Participants post photos, ask questions of the coffee house’s owners and swap advice on the best product (the Café au Lait is popular). The guys at the Roaster have learned a golden rule of social media – letting go. By that I mean they encourage conversations they do not control about their product, a clear departure from ‘broadcasting’ messages with posters, adverts and press releases. Sure, the odd unfavourable comment crops up – but most people are praise-worthy and the remarks are all the more credible because they come from real customers, not from the owners. Continue reading →

We reckon 30-40 dogs brought their owners on our demonstration for canine rights on Brighton seafront today. Watch our short YouTube film of the event here.

This fantastic turn-out says one thing to me – people in this city really do care about their pets being treated like outcasts.

In fact, I’d bet most of the 50,000 dog owners in Brighton & Hove would say people who shun dogs in their bars and cafes are barking up the wrong tree entirely.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: a city that is not dog-friendly is closing its door in the faces of thousands of potential tourists bringing in millions of pounds just at the point when Brighton ’s visitor economy badly needs investment. Continue reading →

Ever wandered into a cafe with your beloved four-legged friend – only to be met by tutting and barely-concealed disapproval?

Unfortunately, that has been the experience of many visitors and residents in Brighton and Hove because some businesses are needlessly intolerant of dogs.

Often, it’s just based on the false presumption that they will somehow be unhygienic and poorly-behaved, when the vast majority are not. We’ve admitted dogs at Metrodeco since we opened a year ago and never had cause to ask an owner to take his or her pet outside.

But it’s not just unfair – the real damage is that dog-owners from from other towns and cities will eventually consider this to be a city that is UN-FRIENDLY to dogs. And that’s bad for tourism.